“Experienced?  Well, they’ll pass.  They’ve had experience with bar whisky and talkin’ to their cards at poker, but aside from bein’ pretty much drunks and crookin’ the cards, they ain’t anything uncommon.  But when I got ’em they was wild, they was.  Why, if I’d talked like this in front of ’em they’d of been guns pulled.  But look at ’em now.  I ask you:  Look at ’em now!  Ain’t they tame?  They hear me call ’em what they are, but they don’t even bat an eye.  Yes, sir, I’ve tamed ’em.  They took a lot of lickin’, but now they’re tamed.  Hello!”

For through the door stalked a newcomer.  He paused and cast a curious eye up the table to Lawlor.

“What the hell!” he remarked naively.  “Where’s the chief?”

“Fired!” bellowed Lawlor without a moment of hesitation.

“Who fired him?” asked the new man, with an expectant smile, like one who waits for the point of a joke, but he caught a series of strange signals from men at the table and many a broad wink.

“I fired him, Gregory,” answered Lawlor.  “I fired Nash!”

He turned to Bard.

“You see,” he said rather weakly, “the boys is used to callin’ Nash ’the chief.’”

“Ah, yes,” said Bard, “I understand.”

And Lawlor felt that he did understand, and too well.

Gregory, in the meantime, silenced by the mysterious signs from his fellow cowpunchers, took his place and began eating without another word.  No one spoke to him, but as if he caught the tenseness of the situation, his eyes finally turned and glanced up the table to Bard.

It was easy for Anthony to understand that glance.  It is the sort of look which the curious turn on the man accused of a great crime and sitting in the court room guilty.  His trial in silence had continued until he was found guilty.  Apparently, he was now to be both judged and executed at the same time.

There could not be long delay.  The entrance of Gregory had almost been the precipitant of action, and though it had been smoothed over to an extent, still the air was each moment more charged with suspense.  The men were lighting their second cigarette.  With each second it grew clearer that they were waiting for something.  And as if thoughtful of the work before them, they no longer talked so fluently.

Finally there was no talk at all, save for sporadic outbursts, and the blue smoke and the brown curled up slowly in undisturbed drifts toward the ceiling until a bright halo formed around the gasoline lamp.  A childish thought came to Bard that where the smoke was so thick the fire could not be long delayed.

A second form appeared in the doorway, lithe, graceful, and the light made her hair almost golden.

“Ev’nin’, fellers,” called Sally jauntily.  “Hello, Lawlor; what you doin’ at the head of the table?”

CHAPTER XXX

THE LAMP